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hello i am paul senyol

about my work

born 25 october 1980 in cape town, south africa“The neighbourhood speaks for itself.”I am often seduced by the scratchings of a streetwalker. I like it when kids take a piece of chalk and write on the wall, which is often the case around my home and studio in Woodstock.I received no formal artistic training, but I have been studying art and the mark since my fascination with skateboarding magazines as a teenager in Cape Town. I am inspired by the Mission School Art Movement in San Francisco, the Woostercollective, Marc Gonzalez, Ed Templeton, Barry McGee, punk rock music, the way skateboarding & cycling enables me to access the city, and books in the City Library. Graphics, album covers, magazine layouts and illustrations are an important influence to my aesthetic as is the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Henri Matisse and Joan Miró, respectively.My works celebrate the abstract moments of the image: formal qualities of line, form and hue form/ become/ are the basis of my compositions that evolve through the process of painting. I began exhibiting “free art” on street corners in the early 2000s and this enabled me to connect directly with the street and its unexpected audiences. I now exhibit almost exclusively in the gallery space, but this shift remains, for me, just another space to engage the viewer in a new way.i have exhibited extensively throughout south africa and abroad.i am currently working from a studio in woodstock, cape town.---